Category: Illinois

Since January of 2009 when President Obama took office, job openings by state as measured on Career Builder have increased 7.6% to 252,884 from 235,059. The U.S. unemployment rate stood at 9.9% in May of 2010 and 15.3 million people were unemployed. While the increase is encouraging, job openings must increase much more to make a dent in the high number of unemployed.

Thirty six states have seen increases in job openings under Obama while 14 states have seen decreases.

Of the ten largest states, 9 have shown increases in the number of job openings. Of these large states, North Carolina was the Best State for Job Openings on Careerbuilder. Job openings have increased 17.0% in North Carolina since Obama became President. Illinois was the only large state to show a decrease in job openings since January of 2009. Its job openings decreased 4.5%. California has the most job openings on Careerbuilder yet its unemployment at 12.6% is the second highest in the nation.

The list of best and worst states for job openings follows. Interestingly, some of the states with low unemployment such as North Dakota, South Dakota, Wyoming and Vermont have seen job openings shrink.

Some states may delay paying tax refunds again this year. Taxpayers should call them the “Check In the Mail” States.

Last year Kansas, North Carolina, California and Missouri delayed tax refunds. Taxpayers were not happy about it. Tax refund delays are another sign of government mismanagement. In response to last years fiasco, Missouri state house legislators this week passed a bill that if enacted will shorten the time period that the state can withhold payment without interest. Missouri had to use stimulus money to pay its tax refunds. See: Missouri State House Approves Quicker Refunds .

This year NewYork, Kansas, Iowa and Hawaii have already announced they may have to delay payments. Taxpayers, who are entitled to refunds in these states, will unfortunately suffer.

Forbes recently published its “Special Report: The Global Debt Bomb.” In one of its pieces, United States of Debt , it ranks states according to financial health. The metrics Forbes looked at for each state when building its ranking included unfunded pension liabilities, changes in tax revenue, credit agency ratings, debt as a percentage of Gross State Product, debt per capita, growth expectations for employment and the state economy, net migrations and a moocher ratio that compares government employees, pension burdens and Medicaid enrollees to private-sector employment.

The Worst States for Debt Trouble, according to Forbes, are Illinois, New York, Connecticut, California and NewJersey.

The States with the least Debt Problems are Utah, New Hampshire, Nebraska, Texas and Virginia. All states have significantly lower debt per capita than the Worst States. The Best States also have lower unemployment than the U.S. average of 9.7% and lower than the Worst States with Debt Problems. The Best States for Jobs will typically have better government management of debt.

Forbes also ran an analysis that shows that the states with the Worst Debt and Financial Problems are blue states i.e. states controlled by Democrats. The piece attributed political unions and big spending by Democrats as the cause of the deepest fiscal holes.
See Political Litmus Test: Bluest States Spilling The Most Red Ink

Congratulations go to New Orleans Saints for winning their first Super Bowl Championship.

New Orleans and the entire state of Louisiana will celebrate and have bragging rights all year long. Only 15 states have ever had the honor of being the home state of a Super Bowl Champion.

What States have the most Super Bowl Champions?

California has the honor of being the state with the most football Super Bowl Wins. Its teams have won 8 of the 44 completed Super Bowls. Two teams have contributed to California’s rank as the Best State for Football Championships. The San Francisco 49ers have 5 wins and the Oakland Raiders have 3.

Pennsylvania is the second Best State for Football Championships with all 6 wins coming from the Pittsburgh Steelers, the team with the most Super Bowl wins. Texas is ranked as the third Best State for Football Championships with 5 wins, all by the Dallas Cowboys.

The state list of Super Bowl Winners is below:

Super Bowl Champions by State

It has been one year since President Obama took office and announced a stimulus bill that was to improve jobs.The data suggests that the job market continued to deteriorate this past year. Unemployment is up to 10% from 7.4%. Job Openings are down 5.48%

Job Openings, as measured on careerbuilder.com, have not improved from one year ago. Nationwide, job openings at January 31, 2010 were 5.48% lower than January 29, 2009. Total job openings stand at 222,189 as compared to 235,059 last year, a decrease of 12,870. 37 States have lower job openings as compared to last year.

The Best State for Job Openings is Indiana as measured by growth. Indiana had the largest gain in job openings, 887, up 17.4% from a year ago. Best States for Jobs also were Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee. Florida and Ohio were the best large states for job openings. They were the only 2 states of the Top Ten Employment States to show increases in openings. 13 States had increases in job openings from a year ago.

The Worst State for Jobs was California. It has 3,667 less job openings from a year ago, a decrease of 14.18%. California also has the fourth worst employment rate in the nation. Unemployment in California is now at 12.4%, up 3.7% from a year ago. California is struggling on many fronts and an increasing jobless population will not help it turn around. For more on California see California Jobs Shrinking

Additional Worst States for Jobs are Texas, Illinois,Massachusetts and Arizona. They each had large job opening losses and double digit declines in percentage terms.

Another measure of job openings, the Conference Board’s Help Wanted On-Line Data Series is also indicating year over year decreases in job openings. The Conference Board Data for 2009 annual average job openings stands at 3,357,000, 1.1million below the 4,481,000 annual average for 2008. More importantly their average job opening number for 2009 is 2.4 million below the 2007 average job opening number. These are not good numbers. On an encouraging note,the Conference Board reported positive improvement in job openings in New York, Washington, Connecticut, Virginia, North Carolina, Georgia, Delaware and New Jersey.

All 50 states saw their unemployment rates increase in 2009. See Unemployment by State 2009 for the entire 2009 list and unemployment changes from a year ago. Job openings must increase significantly nationwide if unemployment is to improve to acceptable levels. It is going to take some time for this to occur.

Only 3 States show job opening increases since January 29 at the beginning of the Obama Administration. The Best States for Jobs are Indiana, Kentucky and Idaho as they are the only states that have more job openings than at the end of January. Yet despite these increases, unemployment continues to rise. Indiana’s unemployment rate has increased this year to 9.8% from 8.2% in January. Kentucky has increased to 11.2% from 8.7%. Idaho has seen its unemployment rate increase to 9.0% from 6.5% in January. Job openings are not keeping up with job losses.

The Worst States for Jobs are many. 47 states have lower job openings posted on careerbuilder.com than in January.
California Jobs have decreased the most since January with 4,764 fewer openings. Texas has 3,138 fewer jobs and IllinoisJobs have also decreased by 2,742.

Nationwide, job openings have dropped 13.01% since January. There were 204,475 job openings on careerbuilder.com at the end of November 2009 as compared to 235,059 in January. This is an important indicator for employment direction as job openings precede employment. Employers are not creating enough new jobs to keep up with the pace of losses. The US had 15.7 million unemployed people in October 2009 according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Many more job openings must emerge to improve the unemployment rate.

The Wall Street Journal today also ran a piece on upcoming job cuts. It sees cuts increasing in 2010 as stimulus money is running out on certain construction infrastructure jobs. Nationwide construction industry unemployment is now a staggering 19.1% and looks to get worse. See Job Cuts Loom as Stimulus Fades

The stimulus program is showing few signs of progress on the job front. Expect rising unemployment over the coming months because job openings are weak and the short term bump from the stimulus fades. Private sector jobs are the key for long term employment improvement. The List of Job Openings by State follows.

23 States are now borrowing from the U.S. Government to pay for unemployment benefits. (California has borrowed $4.5 billion as of mid October 2009, the most in the nation.)

This is only the beginning of the bad news for states and employers. States will be borrowing more and taxing employers more in 2010. This will impact the willingness of companies to hire in the future. This is not good news for the job market.

For example, Florida, which has borrowed $465 million as of mid October, this past week increased its unemployment insurance tax on employers for next year quite substantially. The minimum tax will jump from $8.40 per employee to $100.30 – analmost 12-fold increase – while the maximum will go up from $378 peremployee to $459. Florida is facing a multitude of issues as it tries to dig itself out of the faltering economy. The Sun-Sentinel did a great piece this week highlighting how Florida is losing residents, jobs and borrowing $300 million per month to make unemployment payments. See Shrinking Florida faces tough choices as residents flee, jobs vanish

Arizona recently asked to borrow $600 million in federal funds to keep its jobless payments going. With its October 2009 unemployment rate of 9.3% Arizona will be needing to raise taxes on employers as well. It is currently estimated that Arizona will increase its tax 41.8% on employers in January 2010. See Arizona jobless funds running out

Most states will announce their unemployment tax rates for 2010 before year end and taxes will be increasing. This is bad news for employers and the outlook for jobs. The Heritage Foundation’s Foundry blog recently posted a good explanation on how these increases will further hurt the job market. See How Unemployment Taxes and Obama’s Stimulus Are Killing Jobs

The List of States Borrowing To Pay Unemployment Benefits follows. We added Arizona to the BLS list that was compiled as of October 19, 2009.

The US States continued to see rising unemployment in June. 16 States, if you count DC, now have unemployment rates greater than 10.0%. 38 states and DC saw increases from May. All 50 states and DC have higher unemployment than a year ago. Our national unemployment rate was 9.5% in June. The July national jobless numbers will be released on August 7.

Michigan continues to be the Worst State for Jobs with a 15.2% jobless rate. North Dakota is the Best State for Jobs with only a 4.2% unemployment rate.

3 of the 5 largest states by population have rates greater than 10.% They are California, Florida and Illinois. California has more than twice as many jobless as any other state with 2.146 million jobless in June. California hasthemost unemployed people in the nation. The next largest amount of unemployed are in Florida with 970,000 jobless in June according to BLS statistics.

We will be releasing shortly our updated analysis of job openings. Unemployment will continue to rise until more job openings start to appear. List of Best and Worst States for Jobs is below.

The article points out the marked differences between states and helpsmake the case that the lower tax, less government intrusion model of Texas is winning over California. This is a case we have long advocated. The Economist also notes the work that this writer has developed overthe last 5 years on Chief Executive’s Best and Worst States for Business. (Texas is #1 and California is #50 according to CEOs.)

With all 50 state governments under severe fiscal pressure, it is only a matter of time that the next phase of recovery will be focused on growth. You can not spend your way out of a problem. The severity of this budget crisis may lead finally to a rethinking of attitudes towards business. My list of states that need major rethinking would start with the 10 most broke states. They are:

1. California: $53.7 billion shortfall or 58 percent of its budget
2. Arizona: $4 billion shortfall or 41 percent of its budget
3. Nevada: $1.2 billion or 38 percent of its budget
4. Illinois: $9.2 billion or 33 percent of its budget
5. NewYork: $17.9 billion or 32 percent of its budget
6. Alaska: $1.35 billion shortfall or 30 percent of its budget
7. New Jersey: $8.8 billion or 30 percent of its budget
8. Oregon: $4.2 billion or 29 percent of its budget
9. Vermont: $278 million or 25 percent of its budget
10. Washington: $3.6 billion or 23 percent of its budget
10. Connecticut: $4.1 billion or 23 percent of its budget

Source: ABC News

The Top Ten Broke States tend to have the most taxation and most are run by liberal oriented governments.

All 50 states will be politically pressured to increase opportunities and jobs for their populations in the coming years. Being attractive to business will be the obvious choice. The wonders of our American system are our many state laboratories. High Tax States, Low Tax States, Business Friendly States and Business Unfriendly States. Those states early to adopt policies that encourage business will recover and grow faster than those who are slow. We are glad to see more publications like The Economist contributing to the debate. Hopefully we will start to see more low tax, business friendly policy changes in our many laboratories get enacted.

With the U.S. unemployment rate now at the 25 year high of 9.4%, some in the media have suggested it is good news that the rate of job loss is slowing. While there may be a glitter of hope in the lower number of job loss filings, the fact is job openings must improve in order to start absorbing the unemployed. The question is when will corporations start hiring more and where. The U.S. unemployment rate will not improve until job openings increase.

Best and Worst States analysis shows that job openings on careerbuilder.com have dropped 10.6% from Jan 29 to May 31 2009. Job openings less than 30 days old decreased to 210,048 as of May 31, 2009 from 235,059 as of January 29, 2009. More importantly, job openings dropped further since March 14, 2009 when we last reported. Job losses dropped 1.4% from 213,077 to 210,048. One might cheer at only a 1.4% loss in 45 days but if your portfolio declined about 1% per month you should consider this alarming. We are still losing job openings at the alarming rate of 1% per month. This is not what recoveries are built upon.

More importantly, all 10 of the biggest states have seen job opening drops since January. These 10 states represented 54% of all the open jobs on Career Builder in May. These states have seen a drop in openings of 12.25% since January, larger than the country average. Illinois was the Worst State for Job Openings with a decline of 20.4%. California at 16.6% decline was the second Worst State for Job Openings. New York at minus 14.3%, New Jersey at minus 13.2% and Pennsylvania at minus 10.6% job opening loss round out the 5 Worst States for Job Openings.

8 States showed improvement in job openings since January. These states showed small job increases. The Best State for Job Opening Improvement was South Carolina. Its job openings increased by only 237 or 7.6%. Kentucky at 134 and Indiana at 133 were the only other states that saw job openings improve by greater than 100.

Here is the listing of Job Openings by State for May 31,2009 as compared to Jan 31, 2009.

Finally, the recent drop is all the more alarming as there has been a headwindof positive stimulus. The U.S. American Recovery and Reinvestment Actwas signed into law on February 14, 2009 about one month prior to ourlast measurement. March was also the bottom of the stock market dropwith a strong rally of 25.6% in the Dow from March to May. Onewould expect improvement in view of the great wealth effect of thestock market and the government stimulus. We will update more fully job changes since March when the stock market began to recover in an upcoming post. Signs of encouragement for job openings are not yet strong.

The Tax Foundation recently released their 2009 Tax Freedom Day Study. It measures how many days the average worker must work to pay taxes. There is a wide disparity among states. The tax burden you bear can significantly impact your quality of life.

The Best State for Tax Freedom is Alaska where it takes 82 days almost 25% of the year just to pay taxes. Louisiana, Mississippi, South Dakota, North Dakota and West Virginia are also rated Best States for Tax Freedom. If you are not retired, these states would be considered as candidates for Best States to Work.

The Worst State for Tax Freedom is Connecticut where it takes 120 days or until April 30 to pay taxes. If you live in Connecticut 1/3 of your time every year goes to pay taxes to the Federal, State and Local governments. That is almost 50% more days than Alaska. New Jersey, New York, California and Maryland are also rated Worst States for Tax Freedom.

According to the Tax Foundation study, five major categories of tax dominate the tax burden. Individual income taxes, both federal and state, require 38 days’ work. Payroll taxes take another 27 days’ work. Sales and excise taxes, mostly state and local, take 15 days to pay off. Corporate income taxes take 6 days, and property taxes take 12. Americans will log 4 more days to pay other miscellaneous taxes, most notably including motor vehicle license taxes and severance taxes, and about 1 day for estate taxes.

What state you live in is very important in determining your lifestyle as higher cost of living states tend to have higher tax burdens. Lower disposable income is the result. Many states are also increasing many taxes due to economic conditions which will increase tax burdens. Noteworthy examples are the proposed increases in New York and California that will make these heavily burdened states more undesirable to live. If you are not retired, New York and California would have to be considered as 2 of the Worst States to Work.